it and its sodden silk sock carefully and
distastefully on the grass.
"You'll catch cold," I said. "You'd
better take off your sock."
Viana did as I suggested and re-
moved the drenched sock, mechani-
cally, indifferently. For a few seconds,
he held it, again distastefully, between
two fingers, and then he draped it over
the back of his chair, where it began to
drip, with the smell of wet cloth. Now
he had one bare foot and the other still
covered by a pale-blue sock and a ra-
bidly red moccasin. The bare foot was
wet, and the covered foot very dry. I
found it hard to look away from the for-
mer, but perhaps fixing my gaze on
something was a way of deceiving my
ears, of pretending that what mattered
were Vianà s feet and not what he had
said: that one day he would have to kill
Inés.
"What are you saying? Are you
crazy?" I didn't want to continue the
conversation, but I said precisely the
words that obliged him to do so.
"Crazy? What I'm going to tell you
now is, in my view, totally logical," Viana
replied, and he again smoothed his non-
existent hair. "I've known Inés since she
was a child, since she was seven years old.
Now shè s twenty-three. Shè s the daugh-
ter of a couple who were great friends of
mine until five years ago, but who no lon-
ger are, because, as is perfectly normal,
theyre angry that their eighteen-year-old
daughter went off to live with a friend of
theirs, and they want nothing more to do
with me or, almost, with her. I used to go
to my friends' house often, and there I
would see Inés, and I adored her. She
adored me, too, but in a different way, of
course. She couldn't know it at the time
but I knew at once, and I decided to pre-
pare myself: to wait the eleven years until
she came of age. I didn't want to act in
haste and ruin everything, and during the
last few months I was the one who had to
hold her back. It's what some people call
'fixation,' and I call 'adoration.' I worked
out that by the time she was eighteen I
would be nearly fifty, and so I took good
care of myself: for her sake. I took enor-
mous care of myself: although I couldn't
do anything about my weight-your me-
tabolism changes as you get older-or
about my baldness. Therè s still no satis-
factory remedy for that, and, as I'm sure
you'll agree, a toupee is too undignified.
But I spent eleven years going to gyms
and eating healthily and having checkups
every three months-I have an absolute
horror of operations-avoiding other
women, avoiding diseases, and, of course,
preparing myself mentally: listening to
the same records she listened to, learning
games, watching TV, children's shows
and years of ads. I know all the jingles by
heart. As for reading matter, well, you can
imagine. First I read comic books, then
adventure books, a few romantic novels,
the Spanish literature she was studying at
school, as well as the Catalan, Manelic
and the wolf, and all that. I still read
whatever she happens to be reading,
American writers, mainly-there are
hundreds of them. I've played a lot of ten-
nis and squash, done a bit of skiing, and,
on weekends, I've often had to travel to
Madrid or San Sebastián just so that she
could go to the races, and here wève been
to all the fiestas in all the villages to see
the horses and their riders. You may also
have noticed me riding a motorcycle.
And you've seen how I dress, although, of
course, in summer anything goes." Viana
made an eloquent gesture with his right
hand, as if taking in his whole outfit. "Do
you see what I'm saying? All these years,
I've led a parallel existence-I'm a lawyer,
by the way, specializing in divorce. First a
childhood existence, then an adolescent
one-I was the king of video games-
and, since I couldn't go to the movies
with her, 1'd go on my own to see all those
teen movies about thugs and extraterres-
trials. I've led a parallel existence, but one
with no continuity, because it's incredibly
hard to stay up to date-young peoplès
interests change all the time. You said
that you and your wife are about the same
age, so your fields of reference must be
very similar. It's easy for you. Just imagine
if it weren't like that-imagine the long
silences there would be in your conversa-
tions. And the worst thing would be hav-
ing to explain everything, every reference,
every allusion, every joke about your own
past or your own era. Best not to bother.
I had a long wait, and, what's more, I had
to reject my own past and create, as much
as possible, another one that coincided
with hers, with what would become her
"
past.
Viana paused for a moment, very
briefly. Our eyes were accustomed now
to the darkness and to the light from the
water. We were on an island. I had no
.
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